Where do *you* draw the line between "I don't want to see that" and "That should not exist"?

Many films invite us to share in violence because that way we acknowledge our own capacity for it. 'Taxi Driver' is one such. But I don't understand stevem's point about mass murder being 'rooted in culture'. Are all those 'philias' you mentioned really worse than murder? Is it out of line to suggest that people's passivity about real mass murder derives in part from their acceptance of it in racist films like 'Black Hawk Down'?

'Natural Born Killers' is just a pain in the ass, it should have been a straight-to-video thing, ignored. Couldn't care less if it were banned.

Cartoon violence offends me - violence where someone gets shot and there's no blood, no gore, there's no bruising, no trauma, people get beaten to the point where they are rendered unconscious, yet turn up again the next day with a bandaid - more than realistic violence. Because that glamourises - and also inures one to violence - in a way that truly graphic and horrible stuff does not.

This is why I like programmes like CSI, even though they're really gorey and gross to look at.

HSA was talking about "video nasties" that he watched when he was younger, and said that he wished he'd never watched them at all, because he said "there are images that I will never get out of mind, ever." Is that a harmfulness we're not even addressing?

Is the "intention" of a film important? A film like "American History X" has some utterly horrific images of violence and gore - yet it reinforces ideas which I think are very important to discuss, and ultimately positive. I find this violence less offensive than the violence of Tarrantino films, which seem to offer no substance beyond shock and titillation. ("Crime doesn't pay" is not a message which I'm interested in expoloring as it's too simplistic, while "racism is a complex social and economic issue" perhaps is more interesting?)

Or at least 3. Sheesh. Why do my threads die unless they are about sex?

I agree with this totally. I watched alot of horror films when I was younger which bothered me immensely. Also, images in another form, say the internet, have proven to be just as damaging for me. I had alot of problems with Rotten.com. It was so compelling & yet extremely damaging at the same time. It gave me nitemares & really affected me.

my point about mass murder in culture: we hear about real life murder everyday and get so used to the idea...rape and paedophilia too sadly but murder is often so swiftly done compared to those foul acts - someone gets a bullet in the head or chest, they die pretty quickly...and there is a level where some people feel that they'd rather die than be subjected to grotesque sexual abuse, or subject anyone else to them. people also seem to feel there's more nobility and dignity in the death of an innocent whereas i can see how victims of sexual abuse can be harder to empathise with, and they have to rebuild their lives over time with all that fear, remorse, guilt, anger, often wishing they HAD died. of course they get sympathy, but empathy is far more difficult. it's that emotional complexity that makes it worse for me than someone being gunned down in cold blood just like that, but it's a completely different situation i guess.

Also the criticisms of Tarantino are quite harsh Kate, the violence in the films is/was essential in order to create the 3d character by juxtaposing it with banal conversations about breakfast.

I don't think there's any need for censorship, perhaps the ratings system could be more clear or have some higher level or more specific guidelines but really taken out of context these can be fairly meaningless and impersonal. I don't understand the mentality that would want something banned really though. I don't mean that I find it stupid or something snarky, I just genuinely don't understand it.

Well this brings up an interesting point about censorship - even if it's censorship in the form of warnings. Human beings are by nature curious, and if you tell them something is bad for them, and label or warn or otherwise try to control they want to see it more. You *know* what rotten.com is like, yet you look anyway. HSA admits that the very forbidden nature of video nasties made him - as an adolescent - want to know what they were about even more!

Children and adolescents - precisely the people who are going to be most affected by extreme imagery because their ideas are not fully formed yet - are by nature the most curious. Does screening or warning or incomplete banning work?

With regard to political propaganda - well, I agree. But how do you define political propaganda?

I was struck in the book "Why Do People Hate America?" about the argument about American films. That implicit in American culture, and therefore in its art, is the idea of the Redemptive Qualities of Violence. Does this come under the banner of political propaganda, because many people feel that it does. After reading that chapter, I started to see many seemingly innocuous movies (Die Hard was the first film that really struck me) in a very different light.

What bothered me most of all was not the explosions and the blood and the random killing of hostages by the "evil" terrorists etc. etc. etc. - but at the end of the film, it was shown as moral and good - a happy ending, if you like - that the policeman who didn't want to use his gun ended up killing someone, albeit to protect his new friend. *That* scene bothered me more than anything else in the film.

The 'redemption through violence' idea *is* huge in Hollywood cinema, in the western especially, but equally today. That's partly why a film like 'Irreversible' is important, because it tries to take apart, analyse, this code.
'Die Hard' I like in so many ways, but it is the same old story, self-consciously, in that it makes direct reference to 'High Noon'. Alan Rickman thinks it starred John Wayne; B-Will knows that it was Gary Cooper.

For example, I think that I Am Curious, Yellow is indeed an interesting and historically important film. But most of it's "shocking" content could be found elsewhere in mainstream cinema by that point, whereas the strange formatting and technique of the film was, to a degree, completely new and familiar. But I'd say that the other one, I Am Curious, Blue, is far better. Unfortunately, having no attendant controversy baggage and less sex, it wasn't going to ever be as successful.

That should not exist = I believe it's harmful to someone, somewhere, regardless of whether I see it or not.

for example:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00008GYCZ.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg

Hokey Pokey Elmo. the supposed "hot" toy this year.

almost as bad as Chicken Dance Elmo, which has been shown to cause dementia in the young:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005YXV2.01-A3LTAW8FHJ63G2.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

-

as for things that don't exist, i'm not sure. I never get past the "I ain't watching that" line to anything that should be struck from existence. Also, I've never seen Pasolini's Salo, and i don't plan to anytime soon.

redemption through violence may be wrong, but i think what a lot of films may be trying to say is that it is necessary or perhaps even inevitable based on what the human experience invariably entails.

We-ell, yeah that's what they *do* say. They never say - maybe it isn't necessary or inevitable, is the point. Part of the fact that revenge is part of human experience derives from it being implanted in culture. Obv. it's not the only explanation; but for example the Bible as cultural artefact enshrining revenge (commes les autres) is a good example of how actions are caused, sometimes, by ideas.

When I see a bad/irritating/gross film I tend to think 'who the fuck funded that?' rather than allow it to generate tabloid outrage in my head.

I don't like gangster/gunplay films AT ALL, it must be said.

Even so far as racist/anti-Semitic-Holocaust-denial bullshit, censorship is the worst thing possible. That just allows them to play the victim card, and it's better to let the cockroaches out into the sunlight, where people can see them for the buffoons that they are.

I don't think that's a reasonable position to take in a world where not every issue is black/white. I am in general anti-censorship, but I do believe that there are certain degrading things that should probably not be readily available, i.e. kiddie pr0n, bestial1ty pr0n, etc.

That said, the idea of banning actual legitimate things that, while perhaps transgressive, don't actually involve serious abuse and degredation is silly. If I don't want to see something, I just don't go to see it. Banning that "something" seems unreasonable, as does spending an entire day posting on a message about how "something" may be a nefarious Republican plot. If you don't wanna experience something, then don't. No one's got a gun to your head.

But why shouldn't bestiality porn be available? If someone's into that, it's not my problem, as long as every human involved was a consenting adult.

That's a big chunk of the anime market, no?

Which would you rather do, as an animal, star in some kinky porn or be bludgeoned over the head and served as food?

How does that make it a non-argument? You're a vegetarian, I'm not. Great. Now, I'm not going to ban you from slaughtering helpless lettuce, you're not going to ban me from eating a rare prime-rib.

Right? Personal choices that don't directly harm another person.

Likewise, if a consenting adult person to be filmed jackhammering a horse (or vice-versa), why is it our right to forbid those who would want to see such a thing from viewing it?

i'm pretty sure 'nature did not intend' inter-species intercourse and this makes beastiality intolerable and something to be strongly discouraged in my book. take note you at the back caressing that stoat...

I brought up being a vegetarian because you presented me with a false choice, and that was my way to politely brush it off with a joke. Whether I am or not wasn't the point, the point was if you think animals exist solely to A) be eaten or B) be fucked, then you have a seriously fucked up view of the world and should like go visit a zoo or an animal sanctuary or something (but don't jump the fence, you pervert).

I can't believe I'm having to defend why I think bestiality and representations of it are reprehensible. You're making Momus look like a fucking brain surgeon.

You would prefer the beasty flick to take place in a well-lit operating room?

There are a lot of things I find reprehensible that I don't want to see banned, or even shunned. (Organized religion for starters?)

And, to be quite honest, I've never felt entirely comfortable with animal cruelty laws. I love animals as much as anyone, but if it's legal to slaughter animals and hunt them in horribly painful and brutal ways, how can we say that 'animal cruelty' is worthy of jail?

When you torture an animal (for whatever reason) and do not kill it, it can still feel, register and express its pain.

To do this repeatedly to a single animal is cruelty. Seems a pretty simple concept to grasp.

Oh shit. Excuse me.

Respond to what I say, not what you want me to say.

But the whole "yr Momus!" thing is kinda funny, given the parallels here and the Kill Bill thread. You're arguing the Momus position - "I don't like/agree with that, it should be shunned/banned."

To your point on war, yes war is sanctioned killing, but I would argue that it is the exception to the rule. Generally most human societies have laws/prohibitions against murder. Yet people still murder each other (outside of warfare), and if you were from another planet (which I'm now convinced you are) and did not know of those laws/prohibitions, you might reasonably conclude that killing is indeed okay and not worthy of jail time. Whether or not those laws/prohibitions are ineffective or not is clearly not the point.

RE: justifications - what are they? Why should bestiality porn be illegal, if I can still eat meat?

Are any non-consenting humans harmed in the production of bestiality porn?

Maybe it comes down to a differing view on the role of government and laws - I'm rather extreme on the civil libertarian end. If your actions don't directly endanger or harm another person, it's simply not my business.

I think you're making an awfully ambitious leap of logic there Milo.

That the killing and eating of animals is more harmful to them than FUCKING?

At no point have I asked my cats if they choose to eat nasty dry food and drink only water.

At no point have I asked my dog which route he'd like to take on walks.

Now your argument essentially equates humans with animals completely - questions of consent are related to individual rights. Do all animals get the same individual rights as humans?

You didn't answer - are humans and animals equal? Do both share the same set of individual rights and responsibilities?

Is killing a fly the same as killing a person?
Is killing a fly the same as killing a cat?
Is torturing a daddy-longlegs the same as torturing a cat?

uh-oh dave q.

But COME ON?!?!? If somebody pinned you down and brandished a rusty, jagged hacksaw and said "Pick one: I will either rape you or kill you," WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE!?!??!

Hey hey hey, shunned, yes. Banned, no.

Beastie stuff falls under the "My god, I'll never get that image out of my mind" criteria for me.

And when you start talking about "consent" - what do you do about instances where consent is quite grey? How much of the porn industry takes place through soft coercian?

I don't know, this thread has got so weird I have to think about it.

Does any of it?

Slight tangent: It seems to me, if you film someone doing something illegal, the film itself doesn't have to be illegal for *the act to be illegal* (and thus the film to be EVIDENCE). This should cover all your kiddie-porn and bestiality prosecution needs, shouldn't it?

my understanding/interpretation of the caan/kidman scene: kidman was forgiving the town for their bad behaviors, because they were 'doing the best they could under harsh circumstances and if i were in their shoes, wouldn't i do the same?' caan points out that she insults/harms them by not holding them accountable. in effect she is saying 'you aren't good enough to understand right & wrong on my level.' (i can't yet decide what to make of this scene considering what role america plays in the movie)

i can't think of anything that shouldn't exist. goodness power derived in part from contrast to badness, etc.

sorry i can't get that any clearer

Didn't Michael Moore have a theory about American media using violence/fear on the news and in movies to keep the population in a state of anxiety, politically docile and willing to consume to assuage their nervousness? Or was that Marilyn Manson? Not that I'm discrediting this idea based on its source, I just didn't want to claim it as mine.

I don't know which way violence works with regard to desensitisation - if anything, I've got *more* sensitised to violence over the years, but that may be a process of growing older rather than more exposure.